The GB Rowing Team is the high performance arm of British Rowing. Rowing is the nation’s most continuously successful Olympic sport, having won a gold medal in every Olympic Games since 1984, and has won six Paralympic golds since the sport was introduced to the Paralympic Games programme in 2008.

April 19, 2012

British Rower ready for Pacific row

British rower and adventurer Sarah Outen will embark on the next leg of her extraordinary London2London: Via the World challenge in the coming days, rowing solo across the North Pacific Ocean.

So far on her epic journey the 26-year-old has kayaked across the English Channel and cycled over 10,000 miles to Japan.

The next leg of her two-and-a-half year expedition will be a 4,500 nautical mile row from Choshi, Japan, to Vancouver, Canada.

“It is all about endurance,” Sarah – who already holds the record as the first woman and youngest person to row from Australia to Mauritius – said in her blog for The Independent.

“At times it will be blissful and at others it will be gruelling. I will be exhausted physically and mentally, especially on those rough, wet days when I may as well be rowing in a washing machine, and those days when I have stayed up all night on the lookout for ships.

“On average I reckon I will row 8 – 12 hours a day, snacking throughout and generally following a day and night routine so that my body can dry out and decompress a bit.”

Sarah had been scheduled to set off from Japan on April 20th, but is now expected to depart four or five days later.

Only two men have previously completed the 150-200 day row, making Sarah the first woman to achieve the feat if and when she arrives in Canada.

Sarah, who has a fear of deep water, will then attempt to cycle across North America before rowing back home to the UK – another 3,000 miles of treacherous solo rowing.